Three Soldiers

“His legs throbbed with flaming agony. The face of a man with a cigarette in his mouth peered close to his. A hand fumbled at his throat, where the tag was, and someone read: “Andrews, 1.432.286.”



Three Soldiers is one of the major American war novels of the First World War, and remains a classic of the realist war novel genre. This powerful exploration of warfare's dehumanizing effects remains chillingly contemporary.


This grimly realistic depiction of army life follows three young men as they contend with the regimentation, violence, and boredom of military service. Fuselli, a San Francisco store clerk, embraces conformity in the hopes of a promotion. Chrisfield, an Indiana farm boy, and Andrews, a gifted musician, are repelled by the army's mind-numbing routines and battlefield horrors. 


Critic H.L. Mencken praised the book by saying, “Until Three Soldiers is forgotten and fancy achieves its inevitable victory over fact, no war story can be written in the United States without challenging comparison with it.”


“I regard Dos Passos as the greatest writer of our time.” 

—Jean-Paul Sartre


JOHN DOS PASSOS (1896-1970) was an American novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, and painter, best known for his critically acclaimed USA Trilogy, Three Soldiers, and The 42nd Parallel.